“we were the away team [on paper] every game this [weekend], but we were never the away team”
The U SPORTS men’s hockey championships turned into a spectacle this weekend at TD Place, beginning with a five-overtime marathon, continuing with a Gee-Gees overtime upset over back-to-back reigning champions UNB, and concluding with the Gee-Gees taking home the first national championship in program history.
Gees second-year netminder Franky Lapenna led the way all weekend for the hosts, culminating in a berth on the tournament’s all-star team and the championship’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. Lapenna made 31 saves on Sunday evening against the Concordia Stingers — the biggest coming with 14 minutes remaining in the game on a diving paddle stop.
Though the Gees were outshot, and Lapenna at times kept them in the game, it was far from a mismatch. The eight-seeded Gees had been asserting their physicality all weekend, led by a scary forecheck consisting of rookie Mitch Martin, third-year Tommy Bouchard, and seniors Charles-Antoine Roy and Bradley Chenier, among others.
The team was feeding off the energy from the 4000-strong crowd at TD Place, which erupted when centre Vincent Labelle beat Stingers goalie Nikolas Hurtubise’s blocker on a 2-on-1 just under 10 minutes into the game.
Just a few minutes later, Chenier would grab a loose puck out of an offensive zone faceoff and backhand it again past Hurtubise’s blocker to give the Gees an early two-goal lead for his second of the tournament.
Chenier was sporting a black eye and massive cut on his cheek as he emerged from the dressing room after the win, embodying the hard-nosed style of player he is. Sunday was the last game of his five-year Gee-Gees career.
“I knew this was my last time putting on the garnet and grey, I’m so, so happy to be a Gee-Gee and so proud to be a Gee-Gee and I just wanted to give everything I had,” said the Hanmer, O.N. native.
Bouchard almost made it a three-goal lead as he nearly missed the same top left corner on a shorthanded breakaway, but the Gees would still return to the locker room comfortably.
Just a few minutes into the second frame, Martin would feed winger Luka Verreault above the circles and the former Rimouski Oceanic would wire a one-timer home with the netminder almost completely out of the net.
The Stingers would pull Hurtubise with about five minutes remaining, and the Gee-Gees would just barely miss the open cage multiple times. Two poor icing calls by the linesmen with just over four minutes remaining would follow: the first a deflection off a Stinger defender, and the second when Chenier beat a Stinger to the hashmarks, seemingly negating the icing.
The Stingers and Gee-Gees were leaving everything on the ice on Sunday. Photo: Greg Mason/Gee-Gees 
The Gee-Gees fans and varsity athletes came out in droves to cheer on the Gee-Gees and boo the Stingers. Photo: Greg Mason 
Franky Lapenna seen with the team’s Rich Strike t-shirt. Photo: Greg Kolz/Gee-Gees
The Gee-Gees thought they had made the game 4-0 just moments later, as captain Anthony Poulin picked up a rebound on a blocked shot and fired it all the way down to the empty net, but instead a crosschecking penalty was called on defender Brendon Clavelle.
The Stingers would use the power play to score the first of two goals in a minute-and-a-half stretch, but Lapenna and the Gee-Gees would hold on to win the game 3-2.
A career-defining weekend for Franky Lapenna
The crowd was loving every second of the Laval native’s game, with “Franky” chants abounding throughout the night and the biggest cheers coming for a Lapenna save or name announcement.
“I’m so lucky, so privileged to be a part of such a great school that cares about its athletes, that cares about its students,” said Lapenna after the game. “It’s a lot easier to be there in big moments when you’ve got someone there pushing you … we were the away team [on paper] every game this [weekend], but we were never the away team.”
For Lapenna, who posted a goals-against average of 1.72 and save percentage of .942 a season ago, the tournament was a return to form on the biggest stage possible. Even a Lapenna down year had concluded with an 11-6-2 regular season for the former QMJHL star, but his numbers had dipped to a 2.81 goals-against average and .911 save percentage.
Be it teams watching more film, beginning to figure out a sophomore goalie, or the rotating cast of players in front of the goalie, something was off. “I say ‘slumping’, but I still played [to a .911 save percentage], still a good season for most people’s standards … but I hold myself to a [higher] standard,” said Lapenna.
“I want to be the best in every game that I play in. It was hard for me to not be the best, for a good little stretch,” said Lapenna, reminiscing on an emotional season. “The coaches brought me into the office, they challenged me, they said ‘hey, this isn’t good enough, we need more from you,’ and I just put my nose down and worked. I’m happy I did, I’m happy they kicked me in the ass.”
Lapenna, still regarded as one of the nation’s best goalies even in a down year, was invited to the FISU World University Games in Italy this January to compete for Team Canada. He ended up being scratched in five of eight games as he went in preparing to play.
The two goalies who played in front of Lapenna were Samuel Richard of the aforementioned Reds and Kai Edmonds of the TMU Bold, who the Gees eliminated in the semifinals. “It’s really sweet … I kind of proved that I deserved to play when I was there … that’s my sweet cherry on top, but the big thing is that we’re national champions when no one believed in us.”
Three weeks of preparation for Grandmaître and Co.
Patrick Grandmaître has been here before. Well — sort of. 21 years ago, four days removed, a much younger Grandmaître captained the St. Francis Xavier X-Men to the program’s first national championship in Frederiction. Grandmaître is quick to preface that his entire coaching staff is a team but took a moment to reflect on what the full-circle moment meant to him personally.
“I won’t lie to you, selfishly, this is pretty neat for me,” said Grandmaître, the first out of the champagne-soaked Ottawa 67’s locker room still reverberating with the team’s rendition of Aerosmith’s “Dream On”.
“To win one as an athlete, and to win one as a coach, very similar stories in a sense, with just tremendous people around both programs. That’s what I kept telling those guys: when it will happen — because it will happen — you’re now together for life. I still talk to [the St. FX team], it’s such a great feeling.”
Grandmaître also finally owned up to stealing the “Dream On” anthem from that 2004 X-Men team. “Our video for the St. FX championship was based out of the “Dream On” song, and [to try to] rekindle some of that magic, we threw that on [during] this little run that we had here for nationals.”
Justin Stevens, the ever-prepared Gee-Gees associate coach, was responsible for the team’s Rich Strike t-shirts, displaying the horse that won the 2022 Kentucky Derby facing longshot 80:1 odds. “That was a huge one for us … the boys really bought into those two stories,” added Grandmaître.
The head coach noted that without three weeks of preparation following the team’s loss to Queen’s in the OUA semifinals, he “doesn’t know” if the team could have pulled off the initial upset win over the back-to-back reigning champion UNB Reds.
“I don’t know if other people knew how good Concordia was,” added Grandmaître. “But for us, Concordia was pretty much as good as UNB, so we felt like we were again the underdog in this final, and I thought we actually came out the best way today of all finals, of all three games.”
“It’s two good teams playing against each other,” said Stingers head coach Marc-André Element when asked about the one-goal margin of victory in all three meetings between the teams this year. “It’s little details that make the difference, and that’s what happened tonight.”
Element’s Stingers fired 19 of their 33 shots on Lapenna in the final frame. “We had a big push in the third period, it was close … but that’s what it is, the game, it’s a game of details. My group of guys, they believed in it, and they pushed all the way to the end, and that’s why I’m so proud of that group, to fight until the end.”
Bitten by the injury bug
In September, it would not have been far fetched to suggest that the Gee-Gees would have been playing for a national title in six months time. The team had used their guaranteed berth at nationals to their advantage when recruiting players from major junior.
Headlining the recruiting class was Andrew Belchamber, coming off a 23 goal, 57 point year with Sherbrooke of the QMJHL, Zach Giroux, coming off a 20 goal, 55 point year with Sudbury of the OHL, and Mitch Martin, a bruising 6’4” winger who was built for playoff hockey.
Martin had scored 11 goals and added 10 assists in 23 playoff games with the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers in his three-year junior career. Martin also came to the Gees needing open heart surgery, leaving him out of the lineup until past Christmas.
The injuries just kept piling up for the Gee-Gees. Last year’s leading scorer Luka Verreault had played just one game (Jan. 17) after breaking his hand in October and returning for the tournament.
Max Grondin, another 6’4” winger, who led the Gee-Gees with 15 goals last year. The last game Grondin would play this year was a 4-3 loss to the Stingers on Nov. 2.
With all the injuries and limited roster spots, the Gee-Gees had been forced to play defenders (including Johnny Howie and Matt Strilets) at forward at times in the first half of the season. It was during one of those games that the team beat Concordia, backed by a 43-save Lapenna performance.
Defenceman Jacob Leguerrier had been drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the fifth round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Leguerrier turned pro in 2021-22 with the ECHL’s Indy Fuel and played 45 games, recording four goals and 11 assists, while getting into four games of AHL action.
And then, Leguerrier was diagnosed with myocarditis following a battle with long COVID. Leguerrier’s 15 games this season were his first since that professional season three years prior. “He was a beast on the d-core [this tournament],” said Grandmaître, adding that the defender was forced out of the lineup at times for his health.
Right before the tournament, Giroux was sidelined due to injury, right as Verreault made his return. The 5’6” winger finished second in team scoring with 26 points in 28 regular season games.
“We built this team to get here, and get here by the front door,” said Gees head coach Patrick Grandmaître. “We felt like we had the horses to do it right off the hop, and yeah, major injuries to these guys,” added Grandmaître.
“But we were built for this, and you can’t win these without depth,” emphasized Grandmaître. “Every team has injuries, Concordia had a major injury to [Charles Savoie], it happens and that’s why teams win, is because of tremendous depth.”
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- Mitch Martin leads underdog Gees over Bold and to program’s first national final appearance – The Fulcrum
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The win, added to the men’s and women’s basketball teams OUA championships, the women’s soccer team’s OUA championship, appearances at nationals for the men’s and women’s rugby teams, and a national gold medal for swimmer Hugo Lemesle in the 50 meter breaststroke, concludes the best sporting year the University of Ottawa has ever seen.
“I couldn’t imagine anyone else I’d want to share it with,” said Lapenna. “We just created 26 new winners.”
